Ally McBeal Promises
by Thor2000
Summary: Diverging off events in Season Two, Ally's marries William Collins, the son of Barnabas and Angelique Collins of "Dark Shadows," setting off a separate TV timeline in a mutiple series crossover. This story follows Ally McBeal: Revelations,
1. Chapter 1

Ally sighed as she walked home. Flakes of snow melted in the steam of her breath, and the sounds of traffic, city life and distant sirens were her company as she thought of so many things that ran in and out of her head as dreams that refused to go away. She thought of her life and her future and possibilities that left her as she waited unnoticed at the corner and crossed the street, just another face in the crowd as she wandered on alone and stared to the ground. It was just a few days until Thanksgiving and Christmas was coming up, but she didn't feel very much in the holiday spirit. She gazed down at her shadow and noticed the other one overlapping it. Someone was following her as her eyes rounded with fear a little bit. Pretending everything was normal she pulled her coat a bit tighter and clenched her briefcase tighter. Her eyes turned slightly to behind her as she swung it like a club.

"Hey!" William Collins grinned as he caught it short from hitting him. "You trying to kill me?"

"It's you." She replied in a very subdued manner as she looked at him in his black sweater, leather jacket, jeans and boots.

"Yes, it's me." He forced a grin as he stared starry-eyed back to her. She didn't grin just yet. She had not seen him in months! "I wanted to see you."

"Why?" Ally frowned and kept marching as he kept up. "The last time we saw each other was at the Collinsport Train Station after your birthday. You said you were going to the Hotel Overlook in Colorado, and then be back before you headed to Germany..."

"Ally..." William noticed she was obviously upset.

"But you never came." Ally continued and walked faster to make William fight to keep up with her. "You sent me an e-mail telling me you were already in Germany and that you'd see me after that stupid Danish paranormal team was done investigating Stalag 13, but did I see you? No, I got another e-mail from you in California. That, what was it, Vannacutt Sanitarium? If you spent as much time with me as you did chasing those stupid ghosts, I'd..."

"Ally," He stopped her and turned her to look at him. "I'm sorry. You know how important this stuff is to me, but this is me. I don't go home for weeks at a time because of how miserable I feel there. I haven't even seen my parents since my birthday, but the other day I realized how much I missed you, and how much you meant to me. I left California yesterday and came straight here to you." He gazed deeply into her eyes and stroked her chin. "I don't what to say, but if you tell me what you want, I'll say it."

"Oh, it's not your fault." She kissed him. "I'm just really stressed." She talked a little calmer and strolled a little slower for him to keep up with her. "Richard recently hired this new lawyer named Nell who I really hate just after I saw you who I really hate. She's got this little tiny Oriental sidekick named Ming, Wing, Ling or something like that who I really, really hate, and Billy and Georgia seem to be on the outs. I think it could be my fault. He's bleached his hair and has these... Billy girls following him... I seriously think he's lost it."

"I'm sorry." William took her hand like he used to and kissed her. She felt his hands on her waist moving up her back as if he was massaging her. She cooed like a little girl.

"I needed that." She gasped.

"Ally," He looked deep into her troubled child-like brown eyes and reached to caress her childlike chin. She then gasped when he knelt to her feet on the snowy sidewalk "Would you marry me?" He looked up with those troubled boyish eyes looking upon her with extreme loneliness, extending a small box taken from his pocket with a diamond ring in it.

She stared back at him a second. Her eyes bounced subtly from focusing on his left eye to his right eye then back upon the ring and to him again. What to say? How to answer? She was feeling light-headed before him. A light restained chuckle on her lips, she tried to be rational but the romance in her was screaming for her to go for it. As her heart and mind struggled to be the one to give the answer, she fell backward with the sound of the old hinge on a rusty gate breaking loose and releasing the emotions in her heart.


	2. Chapter 2

2

A voice vocalized with perfect harmony. Vonda was rehearsing downstairs in the first floor Martini Bar with her in-house musicians. Mail carrier Cliff Clavin was on his route delivering the mail to the downstairs mail couriers for the building. Dale Saunders was still eating his hot dog as he hastened to the realty office on the third floor where he worked. From the restaurant commission on the second floor, Daphne Tisdale tucked her renewed restaurant license in her purse and hastened off to open her business. People, employees and building supervisors were almost always coming and going. On the top floor, the lawyers and attorneys gathered in the firm's conference room. John Cage checked his watch, smirked and leaned back in his chair with a brief concerned rise of his eyebrows. Georgia Harridge-Thomas was ready to lose her husband's name seeing him with the blonde hair and that young lady five years his junior. The usual morning conference meeting was almost underway sans one short skinny lady lawyer. Georgia looked at Billy's white hair and smirked disgustedly as Nell gasped and looked up.

"Let's just start without her." Nell's eyes glared. "I am getting tired of waiting for every little annoyance."

"What's the matter," John looked up. "Someone drop a house on your sister." He barely looked up as he jostled the pen in his fingers.

"Well, this can't wait." Richard scanned the faces at the table. "We need more clients. We may do great in court, but we don't a large clientele. As a matter of fact, I've set up a few appointments..."

"With whom?" John asked.

"I know people…" Richard insisted. "Who know people…"

"Hello…" Ally popped her head in.

"Dorothy..." Nell started. "Woops, I mean Ally." Ally shot her a look and held her arm out. From the diminutive's lady lawyer's side, William came out of the shadow and similarly put his arm around her as they beamed happily.

"All right," Elaine was the firm's executive assistance. Shining with a big grin to see her pen pal in town again, she walked up and put her arms around William. She kissed him deeply as Ally's eyes widened.

"Elaine," William had to literally unwrap her from around him. "We can't do this anymore."

"Why?" Elaine grinned kittenishly. "What are you going to do? Secretly run off with Ally and get married?" William and Ally shared a look.

"Ally," Georgia looked up. "Isn't that the same thing you were wearing yesterday?"

Nell looked up. It was the same outfit!

"I had it dry cleaned in Manhattan while we were in the hotel." Ally confessed.

"What were you doing in a Manhattan hotel?" Billy asked.

"Well," Ally chuckled as she and William stood side by side again. "We're married!" She spoke with restrained glee and looked around at their faces. There was a breath of silence as faces looked around. Elaine grabbed Ally's left hand, saw the engagement ring and wedding band together on the same finger. She struggled to say something, looked to William, then Ally and fell backward with the sound of a old hinge on a rusty gate.

"What?" John said it first. Georgia was first to rise. She saw the subdued ecstasy in Ally's eyes and grinned for her. She knew it. She just knew it. From the day she first saw William and Ally together, she knew they belonged together.

"Congratulations!" She stood to hug Ally and give her support.

"A buddy of mine flew us to New York last night to be wed by Judge Harry Stone." William admitted. "He's a really good friend of mine. We just got back this morning."

"I can't believe it." John scrunched up his face in his hands.

"Ally, how could you do this?" Richard watched as everyone crowded around Ally. Even Nell was shaking Ally's hand and kissing William lightly. "You know, I always thought when you got married I'd be there to have first crack on the bride's maids."

"Richard!" John felt his heart sink a little.

"Oh, Richard," Ally looked back to him. "Please be happy for me. I know it's a little fast, but..." She looked to William. "This time, I just had to follow my heart."

"Little fast? Ally," John stepped over Elaine on the floor. "Is this really want you want?"

"Yes, John…"

"Ally," Richard continued. "Three words: Cage, Fish and McBeal." He saw a chance to mix the Collins-McBeal fortune into his law firm.

"Richard!"

"Well, why not!" Richard shook William's hand. "Ally, one more word: pre-nup."

"Oh, god…" Even Nell rolled her eyes on that one.


	3. Chapter 3

3

The case was Hardwick vs. Andrews. Jason Hardwick was suing Monica Andrews for emotional discourse between them in high school. Apparently she had gone to the prom with him and left with another guy back in 1977. The unresolved feelings of that night had left Jason a basket case of insecurity and following his doctor's advice, he decided to resolve it by suing Monica for the money he had lost on her that night. Ally was pleading Jason's case pro bono when evidentiary events revealed that Monica had pulled the same stunt on seventeen others guys in the course of her life on separate events. John could stay behind as co-counsel and hear the results as Ally slipped home to pack and go off on her honeymoon.

"What's this crazy rumor I hear about you running off and getting married?" Her roommate, Renee Raddick, was using her lunch break at the district attorney's office to come home to the apartment and confront her. She stood in the doorway as Ally sat on her suitcase to close it.

"It's true." Ally grinned like a little girl. "I am now Ally McBeal-Collins… Although, I could drop the McBeal when I start having babies." She lifted her ring to show it off. "He even gave me a ring. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it…." Marriage had regressed her to a giddy teenager again.

"Uh-huh…" Renee held Ally's left hand checking it out. The diamond was big enough to require a band large enough for it. "That looks like it was purchased by a Collins all right." She lifted her eyes up to Ally. "What about your career?"

"Well, I'm not going to stop being a lawyer." Ally hopped her body up and down on her suitcase t latch it. "William says there's a law firm in Collinsport and that they go to Bangor and Augusta all the time."

"Sweetie…" Renee tried to talk sense to her best friend as Ally hopped to the floor and dragged her suitcase off the bed. "Are you seriously going to leave your life here to build it around this man."

"Renee… I'll still be coming to Boston with him." Ally's voice turned to a soft passionate whisper. "I love him. He loves me. When I'm around him…"

"You find you're with Billy again." Renee finished for him.

"No… Well, yes… Maybe…" Ally looked to her. "Don't confuse me." She paused. "I care about Billy…" Ally confessed. "But it's obvious I can't go back to what we had there. I'm moving forward now…"

"Honey," Renee sighed and sat on the bed. "As long as you really love each other…"

"We do…"

"Then…" Renee stood up again. "What else do you really need?" She hugged her.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you…"

Back at the law offices, Georgia strolled into Ally's office while the diminutive lawyer was in court. She thought Ally might have returned from court, but she was wrong. As she turned, she noticed Elaine stretched out on the sofa where William had carried her. Passed out from the stunning news of the marriage, the office sexpot stirred, scowled and looked up as Georgia stood over her.

"Oh…" she yawned. "I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that Ally and William got married and returned to flaunt it in my face."

"It really happened." Georgia broke the bad news.  
Everyone's heads turned as Elaine screamed as if her world was coming to an end. William was puttering around the office as he waited for the new Mrs. William Collins to return to him. Sitting in the reception area, he looked at his wedding band and spinned it contently with his thumb and felt oddly at peace with the world around him. He had a wife. His life was changing. He saw himself taking her on trips, sharing his life with her and rushing to be with her. Before, his life had no meaning despite hollow pursuits, but now, it had a meaning. Crossing before him a few feet away, Ling noticed him, strolled up and stuck her leg upon a chair. She turned her head to him and seductively and silently growled under breath then stood shocked as William grinned, chuckled and turned away in amusement. Unprepared by that snubbing, Ling gasped and headed to Nell in a hurry. She pushed open the door and stood there.

"Something's wrong." She whined. "I stood before a man and he didn't notice me!"

"That would be William Collins." Nell grinned matter-of-factly. "The guy who married Ally."

"Oh," Ling sighed a breath of relief. "Then he just doesn't go for real women." She shined again. "That was close…" Elaine had passed behind Ling with a hurry to her step and a heavy sensation in her heart. Her feet carried her straight to the newly married Mr. Ally McBeal sitting and looking out the front windows. She stood before him and whimpered as she tried to talk as if she were about to cry. The tears wouldn't come as she looked to him.

"Why?" She asked him. "Why? Why?"

"Because I love her." William admitted. "I love you too, Elaine, but... what I have with Ally is different. I can connect with her on a different way."

"But…" She struggled with her feelings. "I've had feelings for you for years. You opened up to me in your e-mails ever since I first read your first book. I thought…" She tried to think what she was trying to say. "I thought if I was ever going to get married… that you'd be the one."

"Elaine…" William sighed and turned to her. "You gave me moral support. You were like the sister Sara never could be." He mentioned his sister. Elaine knew her as often self-obsessed, mischievous and flighty, mostly using William as a practice dummy in her karate and judo training. "You made it possible for me to talk to girls again after Paula left me." Paula had been his first and only other girlfriend in his life.

"What if I had darkened my hair, cut it and shopped where Ally does? I can wear mini-skirts! I just chose not to." She asked almost seriously as William grinned his boyish grin, secretly coveted his wedding band and platonically kissed her. Elaine's heart melted a bit as he turned for the unisex.

"I was too hot for him." She told herself. "I was so hot it intimidated him and he went for Ally instead." She paused. "It's that damned Ginger-and-Mary Ann thing all over again."

Upon entering the unisex, William looked up. Ally's former boyfriend and current colleague, Billy Thomas was washing his hands with two of his Billy girls hovering around him. He could see how Ally meant he had gone off the deep end. Rebelling against sensitivity after his wife showed a brief attraction to Ally's father, he had bleached his dark hair to blonde and turned himself into the poster child for the Hitler Youth. Accompanied by two shapely young ladies, he allowed them to lather his hands for him and turn the water on for him. He grinned amusingly at the spectacle and started for one of the stalls.

"Good God, it's Charlie Harper all over again…" He flashed upon a character from his past.

"What?" Billy asked him.

"Nothing," William remarked. "I just thought you'd be the last one to lose it."

"Lose nothing." Billy added. "I got smart. Georgia was using me, and I realized it. I'm doing what I want and living the way you live, and if you were smart you wouldn't have let Ally brainwash you into marriage. It's only good for women."

"Well," William's first thought was to punch him, but he wasn't his Cousin Jamison. "Billy, I respect your decisions, but at one time you cared enough about Georgia to sacrifice your life to her. What changed?" He paused. A brief memory came to him. "When did you last see a doctor?"

"Doctor?"

"Billy," The Collins heir liked William Thomas as a friend; it didn't matter to him that he once had a thing for Ally. "I once knew a guy in school named Walt Gentry. He was a good guy; levelheaded and respectable, but then he went off the deep end and started shoplifting, drinking and using drugs. He spiraled to nothing fast. When he tried holding up the town liquor store, the shop owner shot him in the head."

"And what…" Billy's heightened masculine ego made him stand face to face with his old girlfriend's new husband. "Does this have to do with me?"

"When the doctors fought to save his life and remove the bullet," William added dramatically.

"They found a tumor pressing on a part of the brain that controlled his cognitive and logical reasoning. It turns out that inflammations and certain pressures on the brain can cause personality shifts." William confided in him. "I'm not an expert, but… maybe you ought to get checked out."

"This isn't a tumor." Billy sneered and pointed to his hair.

"No, that's a bad choice." William answered. "But this…" He waved his hands all around Billy and his female posse. "…Is, and if you think I'm wrong, prove it."

Billy glared at him a moment more, ran his fingers over his blonde hair and stamped out. Shooing off his girls for the moment, he headed angry and disgruntled to his office and closed the door behind him. Nobody was getting it. This was him. He wasn't nuts. He wasn't off the deep end, and he didn't have a tumor. Entering his office, he looked up, and he saw himself!

"He's right." Brunette Billy looked back from the desk.

"What?"

"I'm tired of acting like an ass." His former self argued. "I want to go back to normal! I think we should go see a doctor. We owe it to Georgia and everyone else." He walked up to blonde Billy and gripped him by the lapels. "And if you don't go, I will."

"Oh, god." Blonde Billy stammered and realized he might actually have a tumor as Collins suggested. "So this is what it's like to be Ally!"


	4. Chapter 4

4

Ally finally caught up with her new husband at the firm and stayed the night with him in his suite at the local Hotel Tipton. The following morning after breakfast, the two of them flew down to Towson, Maryland where her parents lived. Driving in from Baltimore in a rented car, Ally had tried several times to phone ahead, but failed to get through to them. Her mother was either in a long conversation, or her father's phone was turned off. William took her hand as they nervously paused outside the quaint colonial in a wooded neighborhood that was Ally's childhood home. Along the way, she pointed out the deserted house her brother had thought was haunted, the field where she and Billy had played as kids and the big oak tree where they had their first kiss. Pulling up to her childhood home, Ally eagerly wanted to jump out and return back home. After William parked the car, she started striding up from the front porch as Jenny McBeal rushed out to meet them.

"Ally, honey." She kissed her daughter. "William, good to see you two together."

"Yeah," Ally mumbled as she looked to William for support. Her father, George McBeal, was hovering on the porch as he glanced over what he thought was just another in a long line of his daughter's boyfriends. He was a tall silver-haired former barrister himself now retired. Ally was the only one to follow him into the field.

"George," Jenny pulled William closer. "This is the young man who's been dating Ally."

"Really," The man with the silver temples grinned. "And how are you treating my little girl?"

"Mom, Dad…" Ally grinned with all her ecstasy and emotion bundled up to explode all at once.

"We're married!" She shined ready to start giggling again.

"No!" The older couple absorbed the shock a moment as they looked at each other. Looking back, they noticed William scared to say anything and Ally squeezing him lovingly as her proud trophy.

"What?"

"Ally, are you kidding?"

"Um, uh, ah, no." Ally pulled her hair back. "William asked me to marry me and…" She grinned sheepishly. "I did."

George McBeal looked into the nervous eyes of his new son-in-law. He looked like a nice enough young man he thought as he groaned under his breath. The only problem was that he didn't know him. A slow groan came from him.

"Ally, you're not pregnant are you?" Jenny asked.

"No!"

"You can talk, can't you?" George asked William.

"Yes, sir." William finally spoke. "I just hope you like me."

"Ally, Ally, Ally," Jenny led the way into the house talking the entire way. "This is not the way I pictured it. I always thought I'd be there to watch you wear white. Your brothers and sister there..." It was a nice house. Very rural from the exterior, but comfortably modern on the inside, it was decorated with a woman's eye. Bric-a-brac and pieces decorated the wall, wall pieces filled empty spaces. The furniture matched as a full set, but was too scared to even start feeling at home.

"You've got brothers and sister?" William suddenly reacted and asked his wife.

"Don't ask!" Ally stopped him, but he could see the framed photos and pictures in the stairway. Ally oldest brother, Spenser looked remarkably like Kevin Bacon while Andrew partially but almost resembled Christian Slater with a goatee. There were a few child photos of a girl who didn't appear in any other photos who had to be Chloe, the sister Ally said she had lost, but Sondra McBeal, the surviving older sister, looked like Michele Pfeiffer with the body of Cyndi Crawford. Following Ally through the house to the breakfast nook, the walk took the New England heir cross the living room in to mountain cabin style eating area with wood paneled walls and modern fixtures. William peeked into the kitchen and saw a Golden Retriever stretched out outside the back door.

"What do you do for a living?" George asked him.

"Dad," Ally spoke for William again. She was so different here at home! She was so eager to show him off and impress her parents. "You know those Collins you read about in the paper with the Kennedys. William's one of them." George looked back at William standing awkwardly near him.

"Welcome to the family, son !" He spread wide his arms and hugged his son-in-law. He leaned over to Ally. "Have Richard make you a pre-nup."

"Dad!"

"Ally, William," Jenny sat down where she had left her coffee. "Don't get me wrong, but..." She smiled fondly at Ally and briefly became a nostalgic mother with a grown daughter. "My baby, married... We expected a lot more. Not just the news, but... all of it."

"Mrs. McBeal," William started.

"Call me, mom."

"Mom," He grinned. "If that's all you want, let's have another wedding." William looked to Ally. "The works. We'll repeat our vows. We could have it at Collinwood where you can meet my parents." William paused as Ally beamed even harder.

"Collinwood?" Jenny grinned as a phone rang. "Us at Collinwood? I like it." They heard a phone ringing somewhere. George looked for his phone as William and Jenny checked theirs. Clicking open his phone, William apologized to his in-laws and took his call.

"Hello?"

"Why, William, why?" Elaine's voice came from Boston.

"Because I love her, Elaine!"


	5. Chapter 5

5

"For the last time…" Judge Harry Stone ran Criminal Court in the New York City Municipal Courthouse. "The Empire State Building has an elevator. There really is no need to climb the outside of it."

The defendant was a kid in a Spider-Man costume.

"Truly," Harry went on. "Just because it's there does not always mean it has to be climbed." He picked up his gavel. "Two thousand dollar fine, but I'll suspend it if you just go home and never try it again."

"Thank you, your honor…" Eighteen-year old Howard Wolowitz pulled his Spider-Man mask off his head. "And thank you again for not telling my mother…" He checked his web-shooters as bailiff Bull Shannon came to guide him out of the courthouse. "I don't understand what happened. These things worked great in rehearsal."

"Word of advice, kid…" Bull talked to him as they strolled out of the courtroom. "Try building something less dangerous."

"Like Iron Man's armor?"

"Well, there you go!"

"Oh, sir…" Mac came up behind Harry as the court clerk. "I was about to run this to records and noticed you forgot to sign it. It's William and Ally's wedding license."

"Who's William and Ally?" Kelly was the Public Defender in the courtroom and the wife of Dan Fielding the prosecutor. They both served in Harry's court.

"William is a guy I used to hustle pool with in a bar in Boston." Harry signed the license.

"Ally was a young intern who once worked here. She now practices law in Boston. They're both friends of Christine and I."

"Little Miss Mini-Skirt got married." Dan had been tamed a lot since he had married. "There is a God."

"Dan…" Kelly made a little Kelly Ripa-turn of her head to admonish his statement. "Don't be crass."

"Actually," Mac spoke again. "Christine told me they're repeating their vows in a big ceremony at Collinwood. I bet we all get invited. Quon-Lee is so excited, she started building them a Korean bird house as a gift."

"Me at Collinwood?" Dan had always lusted after the Collins fortune. "Yes! Another crack at that sister of his."

Kelly flashed her wedding band at him to remind him he was married.

"This marriage thing is so hard!" He grieved for the single life. "But I love it so much!" He grinned like a schoolboy to his wife.

"Dan…" Harry sighed and looked up to him. "If we get invited, you have to promise to behave yourself."

"Why don't you just neuter me?"

"Because that's my job!" Kelly looked at him.

Back down south in Boston, Georgia Harridge walked into the Greater Boston General Hospital curious and worried as she found Billy's room and saw him sitting up in bed quietly with the traditional IV in his arm and thin robe barely covering his butt. Hs normal hair color was fighting to come back. The frosted look did not look good on him. She strolled up to him wondering what was going on.

"You want to tell me what this is about." She started. "I leave court and get back to the offices and heard you had cleared your schedule for the month. Thinking you had quit, I then heard from Elaine you were in the hospital. You want to tell me what's going on."

"I got a tumor." He answered matter-of-factly as she gasped.

"What? How bad is it?"

"Collins put me on to it." Billy acted the way he was before the bleached head. "Dr. Crusher thinks we might have caught it in time and is rushing me into surgery to stop it from getting worse." Billy's hospital gown rustled as he moved. "She's got this surgeon named Mark Sloan coming from California to assist. He's not a specialist, but he's done the surgery before and can take her through it."

"Are you in pain?"

"No," Billy admitted. "But the hallucinations have begun. I talked to myself for over twenty minutes."

"Yourself?"

"Good Billy." He added. "And we both came to the realization that we still love you and our feelings for you are stronger than what we have for Ally. I want you back in my life. I couldn't think of myself going on without you by my side. You still love me don't you?"

"Can you forgive me for the business with Ally's father?"

"That was my fault." He looked deep into her tranquil blue eyes. "I feel as if I pushed you into it. Would you accept the old brunette Billy Thomas back into your life if I could get him back?"

"Yes," Georgia felt like a little girl again and even looked like her a bit. "I think I like him best." She kissed him.

"It's going to be different, better..." He kissed her back. "I'll be anything you want."

"I just want my husband back." She kissed him as his arms pulled her closer.


	6. Chapter 6

6

The day after leaving Maryland, William and Ally next ended up in Collinsport, Maine on their tour up and down the coast to show what they had did to their families. William was driving happily with Ally beaming and smiling, but he started to slow as he reached the long driveway on to the estate and down the side driveway below the retaining wall against the hill. He was driving almost to a crawl as the Old House on the estate came into view.

"Ally," He parked and closed the car door behind him. "I've a bad feeling about this."

"If I had to tell my parents we eloped..." She prodded him as he lovingly slid his arm behind her and guided her to the front door. He paused on the front veranda just a foot from the front doors, looked back to his wife and opened the door for her. Ally smiled contently happily if not a bit nervously as they entered the proverbial lion's den.

"Mom, dad?" William spoke.

Barnabas Collins was reading in front of the mantle in the parlor. He looked to the voice and beamed at his wayward son. Ally grinned as she stepped out of the way as she looked behind her. Angelique Collins came running as she tossed her apron aside and kissed her firstborn son. Barnabas stood at his chair happy to see his wayward son back in town.

"You've been gone way too long this time!" Angelique's eloquent voice chided him before she noticed Ally. "How did I know you'd go to see Ally first!"

"William," Barnabas turned to him. "You must stay home a bit more. We barely see you anymore; I know this traveling is a passion of yours, but surely you could come home once in a while." He recalled Ally from William's birthday. "Ally, an honor to see you again." He lightly bowed with his Old World charm.

"Dad… mom... " William pulled Ally closer as she drew quiet. "I married Ally."

Another silent gasp as the realization hit them. Angelique's blue eyes went wild with excitement as her face turned to one big grin. Her hands covered her face from stunned surprise. Her feeling was not as grand as Ally's mother. It was more like she was excited to see it happen. Her baby was a grown man now! He had a wife!

"I always knew you'd be the one!" She kissed and hugged Ally. "Welcome to the family!"

"Isn't this sudden, William?" Father turned to son.

"I didn't want to go home to empty house any more..."

"We've always been here."

"Not this one," William referred to the one his Aunt Liz had left him. "The other one. I mean – have you ever heard of feeling alone in a crowd? I was in California with Steve, Matt, Jason and Grant and all these other paranormal researchers, and I finally realized what I was missing." He looked to Ally. "Someone to share it with."

"Was there a ceremony?" Angelique asked Ally.

"Just a little one..." Ally still felt a bit of fear of this woman who was now her mother-in-law now. "Judge Stone in Manhattan married us..."

"No ceremony?" Angelique's eyes were tearing up.

"Mom," Her son looked over. "We talked it over with Ally's parents. We're more than willing to repeat our vows in another ceremony here at Collinwood."

"Barnabas?" The former witch turned to her husband.

"Well…" Barnabas started and was interrupted as Sara came through the door. She locked eyes on her older brother and Ally and looked surprised.

"You're home." She grinned annoyingly and crossed her arms before her chest as she accepted it. "I guess I'll have to move back into my room." She always slept in her brother's room when her wardrobe filled more than three-quarters of her room at the top of the stairs.

"Yeah," Brother turned on sister. "My wife and I would appreciate it."

"Wife?" Sara did a double take as she looked to Ally. The petite lady lawyer held up her hand with the ring. Sara gushed with excitement. " Oh my god, I got a sister! My brother is human after all."

William looked annoyed realizing he still fell victim to her personal jabs at his character.

"Sara…" Angelique never understood her sister's demented sense of humor. A big happy grin across her face, Sara hugged and kissed Ally.

"He didn't brainwash you or anything did you." Sara now just had to cast more aspersions on her brother. "There weren't guns or rifles involved were there."

"No."

"Sara, there will be quite enough of that." Barnabas finally spoke up.

"I'm just kidding, dad" She finally looked to her brother with a big grin. "I love my stupid ghost-chasing brother." She hugged William. "I love her too. I knew she was the one for you."

"Thanks, Sara…" William hugged her back.

"We must do the wedding right." Angelique spoke after glowing so happy. "After Willie and Carolyn, I said we'd never have another Collins married in a courthouse. I'll get in touch with Carolyn and Maggie to start planning it."

"Mrs. Collins…" Ally spoke up. "My mother is interested in the same thing. She had a few things in mind."

"Of course," Angelique started to bond with her new daughter-in-law. "I do so want to meet her, and please call me "mom.""

"Okay…" Ally looked back to William trying to loose the big grin on her face. Sara followed them into the dining room to begin their discussion of a ceremony to make up for the courthouse version. Barnabas looked back to his son.

"William, I'm so proud of you." He spoke to his son after finally seeing him as a grown man. "Ally is a wonderful girl, and she'll make you a wonderful wife, but I do want to discuss a few things with you."

"Sure, dad. What did you…" The younger Collins male felt his cell phone vibrating in his jacket pocket. His father sat back in his chair as William clicked it open and answered it.

"Yes?" He took the call. "Because I love her, Elaine." He answered and hung it up.


	7. Chapter 7

7

The lines in and out of Collinwood were tied up as William's family in Collinsport, Maine and Ally's family near Towson, Maryland discussed wedding plans for the young couple. The McBeals wanted it at their home, but if the merged family and friends were going to be over three hundred, then it just had to be at Collinwood. Angelique proposed that her son's in-laws come to the estate to plan the ceremony in person and get to know each other in person then for the wedding they'd pay to fly the family to town for the wedding. It was obviously going to be a very big thing. William had been the first child born to the family in years since the birth of his Uncle David in 1957. Everyone had watched him grow from a precocious infant to a little brat to an aspiring teen and then into the insecure young man his parents had turned him into in the present. Since then, Ally had certainly made him into a much more agreeable young man.

"A wedding?" Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis, the matron of the estate, talked to Angelique over her phone. "Of course, Angelique! Holding it here is much more logical than taking everyone down to Baltimore."

"I still can't believe it!" Quentin hovered nearby with his ever-present brandy in his hand. Behind him, his flaming red-haired daughter, Amanda Collins, started to head out of the house then stopped to eavesdrop in the foyer.

"I still can't believe that young boy I used to tell all those ghost stories to as a boy is now a married man." He looked into his brandy. "I am now officially an old man."

"We just have to get the old ballroom restored." Carolyn hung up the phone and spoke of the downstairs ballroom that Jamison Collins had split into guest quarters back during Prohibition.

"All those rooms going unused is ridiculous. We'll hire the same people you got to restore Rose Cottage. We'll take the walls down, clean the windows, redo the walls…"

"Who got married?" Amanda came out of hiding. "Did Sara or Lizzie get herself pregnant or something?"

"No…" Carolyn turned round to face her with Quentin. "William's home, and he brought his wife! He married Ally! Isn't that wonderful!" Coming in the back way through the garden from the garage in at the end of the driveway, Quentin's son, Jameson Collins, and Lizzie Loomis stopped and listened from the back hall to the dining room. Jamison swallowed the sandwich on which he was gnawing.

"Married?" He mumbled out loud. "Why would he do a dumb thing like that?" He looked over the drawing room. "He promised to take me to Hooters in Bangor when he got back!"  
Lizzie took offense and smacked his head for being a chauvinist.

"They've barely known each more than two years!" Amanda stood in full view. "I've known him since we were kids!" She looked distraught, her heart broken as her body swayed unconsciously back and forth. She looked as if she was about to break out crying, but her instead eyes rolled back, her hands clutched her heart and with the sound of a rusty gate hinge, her pounding heart and light head allowed her to fell backward in shock. Quentin raced to his daughter, and Carolyn put a pillow under her head on the floor.

"Don't tell me Little Miss Rose Cottage is still in love with William?" Lizzie's sharp venomous tongue spoke as she folded her arms before her tight sweater. "Honestly!"


	8. Chapter 8

8

Carolyn felt she had a million things to do just to the main house to prepare it for the biggest event to the family since Barnabas revealed he had an estranged wife all the years they had known him and that they were getting back together. Angelique and Jenny McBeal took Ally's requests and a few of their own to prepare the ceremony and reception, and Maggie took the guest list to the printers to have them prepared and mailed out. The hope was for a wedding in January or maybe February on Valentine's Day. Bruno Hess was a local Collinsport police officer, but on the side, he owned the only local restoration company. His contractors had restored Rose Cottage, the remodeling of the Old House and several other area homes and business. His company gutted the downstairs guest rooms down the hall from the dining room in the downstairs West Wing down to the original parquet floor underneath and was painting the walls after three days. The wedding invitations were out the Monday after they were printed. Nearly everyone at Cage and Fish received one. William's close friends at Cheers in Boston got tickets as well as Joe and Helen in Nantucket. Close friends he had made as a boy at summer camp were included… Theo Huxtable, Mike Seaver, Seeley Booth, George Constanza… There was a certain point his mother had to pull the plug on his requests. This wedding was not all about him. They still had close friends and family, like Adam Collins and Chris Jennings. However, William still snuck a few more under his mother's radar. In a Manhattan Soho Apartment, several friends had got together to watch a football game that half the city was viewing. Eating pizza and stuffing themselves was half the fun as they crowded the sofa and blocked each other views.

"The game!" Joey Tribbiani charged through the door of his friends' apartment. "What did I miss?" He reached for the pizza.

"Nope." Ross slapped it out of his hand. "No money, no pizza."

"C'mon." Chandler Bing replied. "Let him share."

"No," Ross remained the voice of reason. "We all said, no money, no pizza."

"I did leave money." Joey took a piece any way. "It's under the phone."

"Under the phone..." Ross checked it. "Yeah, right. Oh my god, it is!" He found the money. "How did I miss that?"

Everyone laughed at him as the phone rang in his hand. It seemed to be laughing at him to as he put the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

"Ross, is that you?"

"William," Ross noticed Phoebe had looked up. "How you doing, buddy?"

"Ross," William sat in the library at Collinwood as his parents and in-laws wandered nearby.

"Remember at Camp Arawak we promised to be each other's best man if we got married?"

"Yeah?" Ross moved the phone around as Phoebe hopped around him. "And I'm going to be the first one to hold that promise." He looked over to Rachel on the sofa.

"Is that William?" Phoebe wanted the phone. "Let me speak to him, please? Pretty, please."

"The wedding is next month." William revealed. "Is that Monica in the background?"

"No."

"Rachel?"

"Try again."

"Phoebe?"

"Jackpot!"

"Oh, man," William looked up into Ally's face coming to find him. "I met this girl once and she told me I was the reincarnation of her husband from a previous life. She's so crazy, she makes Amanda look normal."

"Should I be worried?" Ally had other thoughts on china patterns and wallpaper samples as she planned on turning William's cold and distant home on Seaview Terrace into a home where she wanted to live. Her mother was in Collinwood handling the invitations for a few last minute McBeal family members and friends as she slipped a few extra names in a list already over two hundred and fifty. It was one of the quickest weddings ever being planned, but then the Collins family had the money, resources and contacts to pull it off by next month. Elaine and Renee came up from Boston to help Ally, and William ducked and eluded his cousins and old school mates trying to give him a bachelor party. As everything was being pulled together, Amanda wandered sullen and distant through the things happening around her. She watched as the rooms down the hall from the dining room were torn down to bring the ballroom back. She pretended to gag as Lizzie tried to find the right dress to attract the single guys coming to the wedding. She used to go to William to get advice on her feelings, but now she noticed Ally was always around, and when she wasn't, he was looking for her. In her bedroom at Rose Cottage, she removed Lizzie's ruined image from her dart board and replaced it with Ally's… and when that didn't help her feel better, she went to town and half-seriously inquired about buying a hunting rifle from Mr. Amantea at the Collinsport Pawn Shop.

On the day of the wedding, William was in his best suit, actually his only suit, as friends from far and old came to see him married. Having barely seen him the week before, Ally was in Lizzie's room in the main house with Sara and Lizzie to run around and help run her errands. Elaine was her messenger from the room to William and everyone else. Renee was handling her legal responsibilities in Boston. Everything was happened, but Ally was more nervous now then when she actually said, "I do," in Manhattan in front of Harry, Mac and Christine. Her heart was beating fast. She was worried she was sweating, and yet, she was loving the fact that her sister was so jealous of her for a change.

"Ally…" Elaine held a piece of paper to Ally. "Your lips…"

"Honestly, Elaine?"

"Too much lipstick is not a good look when you're getting ready to get married." She had Ally press her lips around the paper.

"What are you talking about?" Lizzie scowled confused. "Her lipstick is perfect!"

"Of course, you would say that…" Elaine looked to Lizzie. "From what I hear, there's should be a revolving door for guys where your window is."

"What?" Lizzie reared her fingernails as both Sara and Ally grabbed Lizzie and pulled her from Elaine. Someone knocked at the door of the bedroom, and Sara turned to answer it. Ally looked up from Lizzie's vanity table expecting her mother with her fixed veil, but it wasn't her. It was a person from the past. A shapely brunette beauty with big brown eyes and long thin dancer's legs extending beyond her skirt stood in the hall. Sara and Ally recognized her immediately.

"Paula!" Ally looked unprepared as the old love interest came up to the room as Ally stood in her mother's wedding dress. "What are you doing here?"

"Someone invited me to your wedding." The struggling brunette singer grinned defeatedly. "Trying to rub it in?"

"Like you wouldn't have had you married William." Ally grinned as Sara and Elaine listened to the verbal catfight.

"Ally…" Sara came up to Ally. "You invited William's old girlfriend?"

"No, I did not!"

"There you are!" Amanda came up into Lizzie's room and closed the door behind her. "That's her." She pointed to Ally. "The enemy."

"You invited Paula?" Lizzie reacted. "Amanda, why would you do that?"

"I was invited by the psycho?" Paula remembered Amanda. On her first date with William in the Eighties, she had been poisoned by her and spent the weekend in the hospital while Amanda followed William to Bangor. When William tried to get away with Paula again, he got a fake phone call to go to Pennsylvania to join Jason and Grant at the Old Allegheny State Penitentiary. The red-haired heiress was somewhere behind the scenes of every ruined outing between William and Paula, and now, she considered Paula her secret weapon to stop this marriage from happening.

"I am not a psycho!" Amanda looked at her. "My mother had me tested!"

"If you see her pull a rifle out…" Lizzie whispered into Ally's ear. "Run for it and don't look back!"

"Ally, honey…" Jenny came up behind this awkward confrontation. "Angelique wants to know if you're ready. Everyone is taking their seats down there."

"Yes, mom…"

"Okay…" She helped Ally place and adjust her veil. Sara hugged Ally one more time, and Lizzie hurried down to take her seat with her parents. Elaine hurried ahead to be one of the matrons of honor with Renee. Amanda distractedly looked to Ally then to Paula before looking around distressed and headed down to take a seat on the groom's side of the room.

"Ally…" Paula looked to her. "Take care of William…" Her heart broke just a little bit. "It's my fault we never got together. I just assumed he was always going to be there for me."

"I can do that." Ally looked to her mom then back to where Paula had been before going toward the stairs. She took a deep breath in her long white gown. "Great, now I'm Georgia…" She referred to her old love triangle with Billy and Georgia. The wedding march started downstairs as guests headed to their seats. Richard stopped trying to talk money with William's mother as he and John sat down side by side with Elaine. Ling, Nell and Renee were across the aisle and in front of Mike and Chelsea Seaver as the march started. Ally had joined her father at the bottom of the stairs in the back hall then walked with him the way to the Collins Dining Room where the caterers had the reception area ready. From there, it was straight across the main hall of the house into the ballroom where over three hundred faces turned in unison to see her enter. Ally appeared as if she gliding as her father guided her arm. He was beaming to her. She appeared to be even more petite in her mother's dress, which was bobbing on the polished parquet floor of the room. From the room to her left, Amanda sat and tried to accept reality then stood and raced from the room trying to hide tears in her eyes. Ally just kept looking forward to William. This was it. This was her big day. Her brothers and sisters were on the aisle to watch her marriage start. Renee and Sara were up front as her bridal matrons in light blue dresses chosen by her mother-in-law, and for once, they did not look horrible. Up front eagerly waiting to share his life with her, William looking back upon her proudly. Ross was up front with him as Reverend James Holliman from the Collinsport Baptist Church conducted the religious ceremony.

"Dude…" Ross leaned over and whispered to William. "She's actually hot."

"And she's got a sister."

Up front close to Ally's family on the left, several of William's friends were interspersed through the bride's side of the family. Ally's sister, Sondra was smitten with Seeley Booth, and Patrick Jane was reading Andrew's quirks and traits. Fox Mulder looked across the aisle to Lizzie trying to flirt with him. Two rows in front of him, Judge Harry Stone and Judge Christine Sullivan-Stone were watching the repeated wedding ceremony. There were old associates of Ally's as well. She had done part of her judicial internship in Stone's Manhattan court before moving to Boston. Ally glanced at Dan Fielding when she passed him. He waved happily, pointed at his wedding ring and at his wife as he proved he could get married too. She turned her head just in time for her father to give her hand to William.

"Dearly beloved, we are here today to join William Benjamin Collins and Allison Marie McBeal in the sacred bonds of marriage…"

"Reminds me a lot of when we got married." On William's side of the room, Quentin quietly whispered to Maggie.

"That was a long time ago." She shined to him.

"Not for me…" He grinned to her and took her hand.

"I'm reminded of a phrase in the Bible that best fits this glorious merging of families…" Holliman announced.

"Richard…" John had discreetly checked his cell phone messages during the ceremony. "Georgia just sent me a text. Billy is out of surgery and in post-op. This is where they have to watch him closely." Everyone from the firm had been concerned about the surgery. Time after surgery was the most crucial. Even with no problems during surgery, Billy could stop breathing, not wake up or have partial memory loss. They all felt a level of trust with William for being able to spot that their colleague needed medical help, but Billy now had to fight to live on his own. Holliman now started the vows as Richard and John tensed up.

"Get ready, Richard." John mumbled to his associate on the other side of Elaine.

"If anyone knows why these two should not be married..." Holliman spoke as Elaine started to stand to speak her piece then felt Richard and John suddenly gag and stifle her to stop her from announcing her feelings for William in front of the room. On the other side of the room, Jamison and J.R. thought they'd have to do the same for Amanda, but as they looked to where she had been sitting they noticed she was already gone. When he stood up to half-seriously look for Amanda marching in with a bazooka, J.R. felt his mother pulling him down to sit in his seat.

In the back with schoolmates Nick Schafer, Matt Burton and Gina Sterling, Paula just reflected on what might have been. William had wanted to marry her too, but she had turned him down to pursue a singing career she was still chasing. Across the aisle and a few rows up, Elaine was still fighting to make herself heard, struggling back at John and Richard's tiny but silent subterfuge before relenting and accepting the inevitable. If she had to lose William to anyone, it might as well be Ally; she deserved it. She melted inside again as Holliman finished the ceremony.

"You may kiss the bride."

In the background, Elaine lightly whimpered as William and Ally kissed. She tried picturing herself in Ally's place as William lifted the veil to kiss the woman he had married twice over. The best part of his life was finished, but now he had the awkward place of being the center of attention for a few minutes longer. All he wanted to do was take her away with him, but Ally's brother, Spenser wanted photos, and so did several others. Guests started mulling either to get close to meet Ally or to sample the catering in the following reception in the dining room. Friends gathered round with best wishes, family members kissed and hugged the couple, and Sondra was eager to get the first alcoholic drink from the Collins Family liquor cabinet. Eventually, the champagne was flowing between everyone. Mulder and a few others apologized to have to leave early because of their jobs or to catch early flights home, and the party dwindled to fewer than two hundred. Through it all, Elaine had Matt Oh from the Collinsport Ghost Society to help her give her gift to the married couple as the reception started. She plugged a microphone to a speaker then began singing her song. Ally as well as much of the families thought it would be slow and romantic.

_"I get chills."_ She sang the song she had picked. _"They're multiplying, and_ _I'm losing control 'cause the power you're supplying. It's electrifying..."_

John and Richard slapped their hands to their heads in unison to realize Elaine was using Olivia Newton-John to announce her eternal devotion for William.

_"You better shape up."_ Paula got into the act and plugged her microphone in. _"Cause I need a man._ _My heart is still on you..."_

_"You better shape up."_ Elaine pushed her out of the way and grinned. _"You_ _better understand. To my heart I must be true..."_

_"Nothing left, nothing left for me to do. You're the one I want..."_ Paula and Elaine chorused together for a brief minute as they started sabotaging and fighting with each other. William gasped and Ally covered her eyes in amusement as Angus MacGyver and Frasier Crane jumped up to pull apart the two feuding vocalists. Barnabas was amused by the reality and looked around for Angelique.

"Ladies," Angelique understood their infatuations with her son. "May I talk to you both?" She led the two females into the music room for a short discussion and a possible abridged version of her love story with Barnabas around another young lady from Martinique. Ally's sister, Sondra, pretended to wander past the buffet table in the dining room and held her glass of wine to her sister, hoping her sister's marriage lasted better than her own. Coming down the north staircase at the end of the main hall from the foyer, Lizzie fixed her dress a bit and adjusted her mussed hair after a fling with Ally's brother, Andrew, in her Uncle Quentin's old room in the house. At the bottom of the stairs, she nearly ran into Ben Gates, William's college roommate from Northwestern Maine University.

"Okay, who bet they'd be a cat fight?" Richard Fish turned round to the bar in the corner of the Collins dining room. George Constanza, Matt Burton, Patrick Jane and Brian Hackett divvied up the money collected from Jamison, J.R., Booth and a few of the other guys attending the wedding.

Georgia missed the whole spectacle. Back in Boston, she was at Billy's side when he emerged from surgery covered in wires and hoses to keep him breathing. Dr. Sloane and Dr. Crusher said it had come off without a problem, but it would not be a full success until Billy woke up from his surgery. Although she wanted to be there to celebrate Ally's fortune and future with her, she wanted hers to be the first face when Billy woke. He slept for eight more hours after his brain surgery as Georgia worried he'd never come out of it. She found it was well into the evening as night entered the hospital. A little after midnight, she heard Billy gasp for air despite the tube down his throat. She stood and saw his eyes peeking out from under his bandaged head.

"I must be dead because I see an angel." He spoke with a hoarse gravelly voice.

"Billy!" Georgia cried tears of joy. "You made it! Do you remember me?" She caressed his face.

"I remember I love you." A tear fell from his eye to the bed and two more lovers found true love.


	9. Chapter 9

9

The following morning, Ally woke up in bed with her husband and in the house of her new Collinsport residence off the grounds of the main estate. It was William's house – a gift by his Aunt Liz who had passed away in 1990. She grinned satisfactorily, ran her fingers over the t-shirt on his chest and became happily content for what seemed to be the first time in her life. She had been happily married for a month now, and even got the wedding she always wanted. It had seemed a honeymoon, but she still had the real one to look forward to at the present. William had promised her a trip to England and across Europe if she just allowed him to rest at home for a while.

From bed, Ally heard a pattering of steps run down the hall. Looking up, she scowled worriedly and wondered what it was. Instead of being the stereotypical wife who roused her husband for every noise, she poked her dainty toes to the carpet and strolled out crossing her bare arms. Goose bumps poked out across her arms and chest as the cold breeze of the house went through her sheer nightgown. She looked up the hall and then down to the banister at the top of the stairs. For her ears only, a chord of music accompanied by voices in chorus spilled out a volley of nonsensical words.

"_Oogah-chaka, oogah-chaka, oogah-oogah, ooogah-chaka…" _The music started in Ally's head accompanied by a shrill voice singing from the Sixties. "_Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I can't fight this feeling deep inside of me_."

Ally saw a short transparent baby, barely two feet high, haunting and break-dancing at the end of the hall. It hopped up the railing, somersaulted and landed back where it was. It was excited. It was celebrating. It acted as if it had drank too much soda and pop rocks.

"What are you doing here?" Ally watched her old hallucination grinding its feet on the carpet. "I thought I left you in Boston. What are you doing here anyway?" She watched it make a running start at her as her eyes widened. It was about to charge her. Her rounded in surprise, she lightly backed up, came running toward her leapt at her headfirst and passed into her abdomen. The momentum forced Ally to the wall as she crashed backward and looked down. Lifting herself back up, Ally watched her belly becoming bigger, wider and rounder. She watched in shock as she found herself becoming very pregnant in the span of a few seconds. She was getting too big! She felt like a house! She screamed as if it were a horror movie!

Waking from that nasty shock, Ally sat up in bed. Hand over her mouth nauseous, she dived over William, ran to the adjacent bathroom and slammed the door. Waking, her confused husband opened his tired eyes, scowled as he checked his watch and swung his feet to the floor as he stood and walked to the door.

"Ally?" He knocked. "Is this a woman thing? If it's about how you look in the morning, it doesn't matter. I already married you."

"Don't come in!" She hollered out. Hearing her vomiting from the partying the previous night, William smirked and rubbed his beard stubble. Figuring he was going to have to get used to it, he decided to head downstairs and look at the flowers delivered to his house since the wedding. They were all through the foyer and partially in the dining room. He pulled one card and read it silently to himself.

"Sorry, we couldn't make it. Congratulations from Jack, Janet, Cindy, Terri, Larry and R.F." He mused nostalgically as the phone rang nearby. He pulled another card as he lifted the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Why, William, please tell me why?" Elaine was still having a hard time accepting it.

"Because I love her, Elaine." William hung up as he read the card from Julia, Charlene and Mary Jo from Atlanta. He had checked Charlene's house for ghosts a year ago. He had met Jack and Larry while staying in California as an advisor for a paranormal documentary, and he had stayed in touch with all of them for several years. Placing the card aside for the moment, he headed back to the kitchen and pulled the eggs from the refrigerator and a bowl from the cabinet above. Breaking and beating five eggs, he tossed in chopped onions, peppers, mushrooms and bacon and heated a pan for the omelets. He fried the Canadian bacon in the same pan, cleaning up the mess he made as he went, sometimes listening for Ally over his head. A glass vase for Ally's tray, he put a red rose in from the bouquet Bobby Ewing had sent from Dallas and then a white one from Opie and Mary Alice Taylor in North Carolina. Two glasses of orange juice, he put the plates in the microwave to melt the cheese for the omelets. As he turned round from putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, Ally had finally come down. She was smiling and beaming at the same time as if she were glowing.

"Are you okay?" William asked as he checked his watch. "You were in there for almost an hour. I hope you don't mind mushrooms in your omelet, I put them in everything I cook." He noticed a tiny blue stick in her fingers.

"What's this?"

"I'm pregnant." She beamed even brighter. William looked back at her as if the revelation hadn't hit him yet and then started slowly falling back. Catching himself, he started grinning ear to ear for the first time in his life, lifted Ally up and hugged her. She squealed with delight and started kissing him with her arms wrapped around his shoulders.


	10. Chapter 10

10

The date on the wall read February 20, 2002. Ally had had a little girl about seven pounds and six ounces that ended up to be named Georgia Angelique Collins. She barely had her figure back when nine months later Elaine Renee Collins was born. The two pregnancies and rampaging hormones had surreptitiously made her a little busty for the first time in her life. She had also stopped tinting her hair, letting it grow a dark luxurious chocolate brown. She was still also working when she wanted to for Cage and Fish as well as for Garner and Peterson in Collinsport, the Collins family retainers. William had also bought her a small house on Dalton Street in Boston when they were all in town. They stayed at the Tipton Hotel while it was being renovated, but for much of the year, they lived in Collinsport from where they had more babysitters to pick.

"Hi guys," Georgia rose from watching TV in the Dalton Street house. "How was your time out?"  
"Wonderful," Ally answered as William took her coat. "How are the girls?"

"Fine. Little Georgia was a little fussy, and Elaine didn't want to go to bed." Georgia grinned amusingly. "But I handled it. William, your Uncle David called. He wants to know if you want go to Burkittsville, Maryland with him?"

"I'll call him back later." William noticed the look in Ally's face. He got it every time he left her alone with the kids. At least, when they were in Collinsport, she could always leave them with their grandmother, but in Boston, the choices were either Georgia, Elaine or Maddie the candy girl from the Tipton.

"We do appreciate you babysitting on short notice, though." William continued as he hung his and Ally's coats on a coat rack. "But every time Elaine baby-sits she wants to bleach their hair!" The phone rang nearby and he moved to answer it. Ally and Georgia swapped notes as he took the call.

"Hello," William replied as he recognized the voice. From the entryway, Ally and Georgia heard his response. "Damn it, Elaine, because I love her!"

Georgia looked to him.

"Is she still calling about that?" She asked as William and Ally groaned. He just headed into the kitchen as Ally pulled her hair back exasperatingly.

"Oh, yeah..." Ally delicately scratched her cheek. "Thanks again."

"Not a problem." Georgia pulled on her coat as she and Ally hugged good-bye. Waving to William, the blonde lawyer dreamed of possibly having kids with Billy just like her half-sister Cheryl in Detroit. Meanwhile, the cold night air passed through her bones, and she glanced on a curly topped blonde eleven-year girl in a coat and stocking hat passing by her as she went on her way. The girl looked back to Georgia as she checked the address in her hand. She looked up to William and Ally's house and headed up the steps to peek inside through the front doors. She watched William cross the landing and head up the stairs. Ally was sipping coffee held by her hands wrapped around it and moved to check her e-mails on the computer. The young visitor knocked on the door as Ally paused then answered the door.

"Yes." Ally stuck her head through the door.

"Are you Allison McBeal?"

"I used to be." Ally huddled in the cold. "Oh, I bet you're selling Girl Scout cookies..."

"No," The girl continued. "I'm your daughter."

Ally grinned amusingly. "Obviously, that's impossible."

"No, it's not." The girl loved having the goods on her. "Do you remember some years ago storing some of your eggs in an experimental fertility clinic to be used later in case you wanted them? Well, some of them were accidentally given to my parents, and I was born so that makes you my real mother." She grinned ear to ear. "Hi, mom!"

Ally glared closer at this girl and saw what she looked like a few years ago. She also resembled little Georgia a little bit with much lighter hair. She started falling backward with the same noise as a rusty hinge on an old gate!

END


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